Aasma Maqbool’s Murrieta middle school son was asked by one student the weekend after the Paris terrorist attack if he’d just returned from the French city.

“That’s just the way it is,” Maqbool says.

It got so bad that the principal heard what was happening and met with the boys who were harassing Maqbool’s child. The kids got lunch detention.

For Muslims living in southwest Riverside County, there have been such moments in the aftermath of the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks.

Those are just some recent events. Who can forget the angry reaction to the proposed Temecula mosque that was approved nearly five years ago, protests that drew national headlines, casting us in the most unfavorable of lights?

Yet when Maqbool and her friends Alifah Achmad, Andrea Tally and Susana Odtallah gathered at Harveston Lake in Temecula recently, they recalled the moments when friends and neighbors showed kindness and compassion.

They all are sporting scarves – a hijab – on their heads, a telltale sign they are Muslim. It is who they are.

All have similar stories, of both animosity and sympathy for their plight in a country still haunted by9/11, those awful prejudices revived by Paris and San Bernardino. The attacks have brought out the best – and worst – in humanity.

Achmad, who lived in Rhode Island on 9/11, recalled being spit on by one person and chased by another in a pickup. She stopped wearing her hijab in public at her father’s insistence because of the fear of reprisals.

“It was the worst thing,” she recalls of going out bareheaded. “I felt naked.”

She felt more confident after the recent attacks, continuing to wear her hijab in public.

“I am not taking this off,” she says. “I am innocent and I am American.”

All can go on about moments of discrimination. Yet they also have stories about those who have shown great compassion, total strangers who want to hug them, to show support.

Maqbool talks about how scared she was to go out after San Bernardino. Then she saw her neighbor, a Christian minister, who asked if she was OK and that he was available to support her in any way.

“That was really sweet,” she says.

Of course, they’re aware of the political climate as the nation enters a presidential election year. They have heard candidates’ positions about Muslims.

They believe most Americans – and most residents in their communities – recognize their faith as one of love, not hate.

In this season of goodwill to all, that is what matters most.

As they, and all of us, wonder what’s going to happen, here’s hoping and praying the new year will bring the peace and understanding we all seek.

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